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| Summer's almost over, it's time to lace 'em up |
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7/20/2017
By Dan Manley
Advocate Sports Editor
The “Dead Period” is over, so let’s begin the 2017-18 high school sports year.
Montgomery County coaches and players are now beginning their final preparations for the sports year to get under way and it won’t be long.
Golf teams will start the year with both the MCHS boys’ and girls’ teams playing their first matches July 28. Boys’ soccer and volleyball will play their openers on Aug. 15 with girls’ soccer getting into action the following day.
Then it’s football Aug. 19 and the cross country teams, boys and girls get rolling Aug. 26.
This is one of the best times of the year after fans take almost three months off and coaches and players get a little break, although it seems to be less and less all the time in this era of 12-month workout and game routines for so many.
Still, there’s that essence of a new beginning, a fresh start. A chance to see what new teams will do. And there are always new teams, no matter how many players there are returning. The dynamics are always a little different.
The optimism for the fall sports at MCHS is reasonably good.
There’s a new coach in girls’ soccer with all of the other head coaches returning.
Nick Pannell is the dean of fall coaches at MCHS as he now enters his 13th season at the helm. Despite the graduation of eight outstanding seniors, including one of the elite players in the MCHS soccer history in Zach Hill, the bar is still high for the Tribe.
Pannell has some talent coming back and another group of solid young players who will give the Indians a chance to make another run by season’s end.
The boys’ golf team is coming off a regional championship and with everyone returning Coach Kevin Lawson has a squad that rates among the state’s top teams. The Indians are good enough and deep enough that they’ll play a second squad in some tournaments.
Cross country coach Hopey Newkirk has built her teams into regional competitors and this year will be no exception.
The volleyball team should have a shot at a district championship as Paige Roussos continues to build that program.
Rodney Miles takes over the girls’ soccer team and has some outstanding young talent on his roster. The biggest challenge for the Lady Indians is getting to the level of the district competition.
In girls’ golf, Coach Chris Spoonamore is simply in need of more players to work with. He has a very talented player in Laura Gay. The Lady Indians should have a chance to reach the state tournament at the end of the year.
In football, the Indians enter their second season under Jamie Egli after finishing with a bright outlook following last season’s third place finish in the district.
All in all, it looks like the fall sports season could easily yield a regional championship or two, maybe a couple of additional district titles.
We’ll keep you covered here in The Advocate.
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